Alfred Kinsey Collection

Alfred Charles Kinsey (1894-1956), B.Sc. in Biology and Psychology
(Bowdoin College, 1916), Sc.D. in Biology (Harvard, 1919), was hired
by Indiana University in 1920 as an Assistant Professor of Zoology.
He established a solid academic reputation through his taxonomic
research on gall wasps and his high school textbooks. By 1937, American
Men of Science listed him as one of their "starred" scientists.

In 1938, the Association of Women students petitioned Indiana
University to offer a course on marriage (for students who were
married or contemplating marriage). Kinsey, who was invited to coordinate
the new marriage course, found little information existed on human
sexual behavior. In his view, the existing studies on this topic
were value-laden or were based on only a small sample of patients.
As a result, Kinsey began gathering case histories of sexual behavior,
eventually overseeing the collection of 18,000 sexual histories.
In 1940, IU President Herman B. Wells gave Kinsey a choice: to continue
either with the marriage course or with his sexuality research project.
He chose the latter. By 1941, Kinsey's pioneering work had earned
the financial support of the National Research Council (at that
time funded by the Rockefeller Foundation), which continued until
1954.

In 1947, in order to guarantee absolute confidentiality to individuals
interviewed and to provide a secure, permanent location for the
growing collection of interview data and other materials Dr. Kinsey
was collecting on human sexuality, the Institute was established
as a not-for-profit corporation affiliated with Indiana University.

The material in the Alfred Charles Kinsey collection spans from
1920 to 1947. Material dated after 1947 is cataloged and stored
as part of the Kinsey Institute Archives Collection.

This collection representing Kinsey's tenure at Indiana University
before the foundation of the Institute includes: course materials
on entomology (papers and slides) and zoology (papers, slides, and
photographs), speeches and lectures on various topics (1939 - 1942),
laboratory and office equipment, and various administrative records
relating to his work at Indiana University.